


roses on asteroids

by lochTenderness (theseourbodies)



Series: Asteroid B 612 [3]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: (THESE ARE JUST TAGS YOU CAN SELECT), Alternate Universe - Flower Shop & Tattoo Parlor, Ambiguous Relationships, Ambiguous Trauma, Baker Bokuto Koutarou, Developing Relationship, Florist Iwaizumi Hajime, Florist Oikawa Tooru, Gen, M/M, Tattoo Artist Akaashi Keiji, Trope Subversion/Inversion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-30
Updated: 2020-11-09
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:14:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25604164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theseourbodies/pseuds/lochTenderness
Summary: "I'm a florist trying to outrun my past and you're the fresh-faced gangster that keeps casually wandering in to my store to ask my advice about orchids. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop but... wait, what do you mean you work down the street at that tattoo parlor?!" AUOr, Iwaizumi and Oikawa are completely normal and emotionally stable best friends who own and operate a flower shop. Akaashi is a tattoo artist who just wants a pretty plant that he won’t immediately kill.
Relationships: Akaashi Keiji & Bokuto Koutarou, Akaashi Keiji & Iwaizumi Hajime & Oikawa Tooru, Iwaizumi Hajime & Oikawa Tooru
Series: Asteroid B 612 [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2008567
Comments: 13
Kudos: 24





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Currently a one shot, but I am interested in expanding
> 
> Experimental concept for me. Oikawa and Iwaizumi love flowers, their shop, and each other.
> 
> Pre-relationship/developing relationship IwaAka because I like what I like I guess.

"Iwa-chan is killing me, what did I do to deserve this?" 

"You're kidding me, right?" 

"Oikawa-san never _kids_ , Iwa-chan." 

"Just rotate the damn vase, trashkawa!" 

"I will do no such thing! If I rotate it, it's going to look unbalanced!" 

"If you'd just let the wisteria fall naturally it wouldn't!"

It's almost three in the morning in the dead quiet hotel lobby, so Oikawa has no qualms about letting his face get red and sweaty from exertion as he keeps whining about gently wiring the wisteria sprigs. Iwaizumi cradles a sheaf of long laurel stems, their leaves bobbing gently as he stalks back and forth, checking the angles of the huge arrangement on the table in front of him. Luckily for him, plants don't absorb odors; he's sweating like a pig in his long sleeves. 

When Oikawa finally wins the argument about the wisteria, Iwaizumi starts handing him the foliage, and Oikawa really goes to work, placing each stem with a careful, steady hand. Laurel leaves are old-school, maybe, but the hotel was a long-standing customer of theirs; Oikawa and Iwaizumi knew what the owner, a spry widow in her mid-eighties, liked by now. Since she had been the first major contract they had ever signed, they were eager to give her what she wanted personally, as well as professionally. Wisteria and fern, laurel leaves and lily-of-the-valley; it helped that he and Oikawa liked the classics, too. 

Finally, Oikawa jumps down from the stepstool and backs up to stand beside Iwaizumi. They're both sweating hard from the work; in the hotel's ruthless AC the sweat is going clammy rapidly under Iwaizumi's arms and at his collar, but it wasn't like he could do anything about it. In front of them, a massive froth of soft purple, white, and green sits on a marble-topped table, perfectly arranged to the best of their not-inconsiderable ability. 

Oikawa doesn't say anything; he just sighs deeply with a bone-deep satisfaction. Grinning, Iwaizumi throws an arm over his shoulders, feeling incredibly content. 

⚘ 

Oikawa is out like a light before Iwaizumi has even navigated out of the hotel's back lot, just like always. It's an hour back to the shop when Iwaizumi drives, so he always drives them back. It only takes them forty minutes to get to the hotel, but that's because Oikawa has a lead foot and is also the only one of them that actually has his license; it's not as big of a deal if he gets pulled over, so he's a little more reckless. 

While Oikawa sleeps in a tangle in the passenger seat, Iwaizumi watches the streetlights flow past him and navigates carefully around the light traffic on the highway. From their buckets in the back of the van, the roses rustle sweetly in between the just-bursting peony blossoms and all the foliage plants they hadn't used for the arrangement this week. He can smell them from the front seat; he keeps the front windows tightly closed, relying on the interior fans even as the night starts to heat up as the spring sun starts lightening the horizon.

Contentment settles around his shoulders, like it always does during the dog watch, driving back home after a job done well. Tooru whuffles, his nose pressed flat by the seatbelt he's twisted into. Hajime smells roses and salty, drying sweat, and he's happy. He's so happy he can't believe it.

⚘

Iwaizumi knew when he saw it that the shop would be perfect. The awning was badly faded, puke green, and ripped to shreds in the left most corner; two of the windows had cracked and not replaced after the last summer storm. Even standing at the curb, a yard away, he can smell the plants left to rot into compost in the grimy bins and troughs still left in front of the store. It took a solid minute to take it all in, and when he had, Iwaizumi wanted it instantly, more than he had ever wanted anything in his life before then.

Behind him, Tooru says "we'll take it" to their realtor, and it doesn't sound flirty or grand. It sounds sure, Tooru sounds sure, and Iwaizumi takes the first step forward toward the store without another second of hesitation.

The awning over the door is now a wide rectangle of mint green and white stripe with a scalloped fringe. It's deep enough to let customers browse the heavy steel tubs outside without getting drenched by runoff when it rained, and it kept the direct sun off the bouquets and bunches of fresh flowers that they placed outside right before the shop opened. The four big windows in front gleam, whole and uncracked; Oikawa had met a guy who knew a guy who was the brother of an actual window painter, so the SEIJOU PETAL WORKS (est. 20XX) sign that greets every interested window shopper is hand painted on the window in colors matching the awning. The whole shop gleams even in the low light before full sunrise, bright and white. 

Every morning, Iwaizumi props open the doors to let the stuffy night air out and coax a breeze in and through the shop, towards the propped open back door leading to the private lot out back. At five on the dot, Oikawa starts hauling big bunches of flowers out to their bins-- peony and tulips, roses in a rainbow of rich colors, lilies and heaps and heaps of daisies and carnations. Conveniently, this is also when most of the early-morning joggers start making their way past the shop. There are usually only a handful, but Iwaizumi can't honestly say for sure that this was already their route before Oikawa started making a fool of himself, grinning and winking and constantly surrounded by beautiful flowers, or if it was just a happy coincidence. Either way, they do tend to make a lot of early morning sales, now. 

Iwaizumi does the heavy lifting inside, hauling the big water buckets around to give everything a good soaking to start the day. He's less willing to be artful and graceful about it than Oikawa, so by the time he's done watering everything from the bundles of more delicate blossoms to the potted plants and trees, he's soaked and sore and satisfied. All around him in the weak morning light, the plants and the flowers, Oikawa's obsessively pruned bonsai trees, come a little bit more alive. If he listens carefully, he almost imagines he can hear them rustling, perking up and leaning into the sun.

They get to see a full range of people throughout the day. Mornings are for ladies, the old kind, who come by with their net bags of groceries for the day, looking for a sweet branch of cherry blossoms or a few pretty lilies to arrange in their entryways. Afternoons are when they trade out some of the more wilted bundles out front-- it's another happy accident that that's also usually when Oikawa catches a lot of younger women, mothers and girlfriends in little bunches, and makes another rush of incidental sales. Late afternoons, right before they close shop with the sun, are usually reserved for older men who bustle in with shiny, red faces and sheepish looks, asking briskly for bunches of roses or daisies for their wives left waiting at home.

Most of their regulars come by in the morning-- bright-eyed Yamata-san and her mother in law; a little rotating group of older ladies who always called Oikawa a scoundrel when he flirted, laughing softly behind their hands. One particular businessman usually arrived around noon on Wednesdays; Oikawa always gave him a wide berth, which Iwaizumi could understand. The man always smelled like hospital and tears, and he picked a bundle of their freshest looking tulips with gentle hands. Oikawa could barely handle the weight of his own emotions, sometimes, so Iwaizumi always makes sure he's back from his break early on Wednesdays.

Iwaizumi loves their morning regulars, but it's the regulars that are less expected that he likes best-- the shop owner from down the street that always comes in to buy different flowers for her partner every Thursday; the haggard nurse, still in his scrubs, that always comes in to check out their latest stock of ferns and air plants; a shy pair of high schoolers who wander around the store every other week, holding hands while they pick single flowers for one another. Oikawa just loves all the people that come in and walked by, keeping up with the ebb and flow of customers like the natural showman that he always was. They orbit around one another, trading jobs easily depending on the need, the time of day, whatever mood either of them is in. It's a tiny universe, all to themselves.

He has to focus to imagine what it was like between them, before. It's an effort to look at Oikawa in his solid-color button downs, tieless with his sleeves rolled up, hair long enough to bob into his face, and remember what he was like before they bought the shop. If Iwaizumi had been able to look in a mirror for longer than seconds at a time anymore, he wonders if he would be able to mark the same differences in himself. Considering the look he's caught on Oikawa's face when he doesn't know Iwaizumi is looking at him, Iwaizumi assumes that yes, he would be able to.

Every time he thinks about it, or he catches Oikawa twiddling with his hair in the mirror, or humming, or doing a dozen other things that Oikawa wouldn't have been allowed, before, Iwaizumi feels that same sense of contentment rising up in him as he does with the plants under the first touch of sun.

⚘

"Hajime?"

Oikawa's voice is light, coaxing; it sets Iwaizumi's instincts on edge instantly. "What's up?"

"Can you come help this customer, I think he's having some trouble deciding on which orchid he wants."

It wouldn't be a strange conversation to overhear, even for their regulars. Oikawa's affectionate and ridiculous on the regular, and it's easy to assume that he uses Iwaizumi's name just as often as he uses that childish nickname. The orchids are Iwaizumi's pet project as much as the bonsai are Oikawa's; there's no reason for anyone to look closer, and so they wouldn't see the tell-tale tremor in Oikawa's left hand, the slight shift of his body that means that he's tensing and relaxing his left knee compulsively.

"No problem," Iwaizumi tells him. He waits until he's up and shuffling past Oikawa to say again, "No problem" so low it barely makes a sound. He stubbornly waits until Oikawa smiles at him, looking sick but sure, to move past him and back into the shop.

The orchids are all tucked into cubbies along the back wall of the long, skinny interior of the shop, where they're framed by the long, feathery tendrils of Oikawa's favorite spiderplant, which gleefully cascades over the edges of the cubby frame. There's a man crouched in front of the lowest level of cubbies, a dark strike across the light wood and bright bursts of color. Black hair, black tee, dark jeans; even bent over his knees, the guy looks tall and comfortably broad-shouldered. He's out of place, framed awkwardly by the gallery of cones on the left wall, holding big bursts of flowers and thick foliage, and the long, sleek glass counter set away from the right wall, gleaming in the passive sunlight. He's out of place, but that's not what would have driven Oikawa away from him and to Iwaizumi, asking for help.

Symmetrical sets of bold streaks of black curl down the back of the guy's half-exposed upper arms, disappearing to sweep forward over his biceps. They're thick, blacking out the pale skin underneath. There's a burst of color half hidden on one side, the design indeterminate; on the other, Iwaizumi can just see the crisp design of a black tipped, white wing-- the leading edge of what has to be a crane the size of Iwaizumi's hand. The lines are bold, traditional, and carefully shaded.

No wonder Oikawa bolted, Iwaizumi thinks, feeling lightheaded himself. He compulsively checks his sleeves, making sure the cuffs of his shirt haven't crept too far up, and steps deeper into the shop.

⚘

"Good afternoon, can I help you find something?"

Any remaining sense of dignity, Akaashi thinks irritably. He unfolds slowly from where he was practically prostrating himself in front of the delicate little flowers and nods politely to the shopkeeper. "Yes. I'm interested in an orchid."

"Ok," says shopkeeper-san, the shorter one with the serious little mouth and the pretty eyes. Akaashi is torn between appreciation and an impending sense of embarrassment. "I'm Iwaizumi, and these orchids are kind of my specialty, so... what are you looking for?"

Akaashi looks only a little way down into Iwaizumi-san's nice, sharp face and decides to bite the bullet. Iwaizumi-san wasn't afraid to talk to Akaashi, nor did he perform the usual facial acrobatics when he noticed Akaashi's tattoos or piercings, and something about that was endearing.

"Good afternoon, Iwaizumi-san. I have read that orchids are easy and rewarding to care for, and since I am not... exactly a green thumb, I was hoping you would have a good variety for beginners."

This is, of course, an embarrassingly bold understatement of how terrible Akaashi really is with plants. Konoha had once called him a plant antichrist, and Akaashi had literally no evidence to refute the accusation. Akaashi once managed to kill a cactus by forgetting to water it. After a week of careful watering and regular observations noted in a brand new notbook, Akaashi's latest plant-- a bamboo plant-- had rotted in its pot overnight. Akaashi didn't have a green thumb, nor even a moderately green tinted one. Akaashi was the bane of plant life, the singular enemy of houseplants everywhere.

Iwaizumi-san's eyebrows draw down and in and Akaashi has the unnerving sensation that his mind has just been thoroughly read.

"Right, ok," says Iwaizumi-san, and Akaashi knows that he has not fallen for Akaashi's overestimation of his own skill at all. "They can be, and we take care of the potting for you here, sir--?"

"Akaashi."

"Akaashi-san." He reaches around Akaashi slowly; it's the first sign of hesitation that Akaashi's seen from him since he walked up, and Akaashi sees his eyes drop quickly to Akaashi's right sleeve and away. For the first time in a long time, Akaashi has to conquer the urge to tug his t-shirt sleeves down. It won't do anything but draw further attention to the ink, anyway, he thinks uneasily.

"I think maybe this would be good for you."

Akaashi drags himself back from where his mind had wandered and blinks at the plant carefully cradled in Iwaizumi-san's hands. The leaves are broad, shiny, and dark, dark green; there is a single long, thin stalk shooting up from the little hollow where the leaves all meet. Near its sharply angled top, another little branch shoots out; it's heavy with tightly closed buds, their little points bristling outwards. It is absolutely lovely in its delicate white pot.

"The buds will open really slowly over a few days. If you're looking for satisfaction, I don't think anything beats that," Iwaizumi-san tells him, a little smile curling the edges of his mouth. Whatever tension had been building in him, the flower had eased it. Akaashi is grateful; he finds that this endears him even more to the plant that Iwaizumi-san has selected.

"Very well," he says softly; whatever the cause, it is not in Akaashi's nature to enjoy making people uncomfortable, and he wants to preserve the atmosphere.

"...Right. Ok, so the thing to remember is that it's ok to wait to water orchids. Get a hand in the soil and check to make sure it's completely dry before you give it any water. And don't stick it in a window where it'll fry, either...."

Thirty minutes later, Akaashi reemerges from the flower shop and exchanges an awkward smile with the taller shopkeeper, who is still dutifully tending to the plants and flowers outside. He carefully tucks his brand new orchid, settled gently into an open-topped box, under his arm and walks off, already thinking about where to place the new addition to his apartment.

⚘

They don't close the shop up early; no one breaks down in hysterics; nothing is thrown dramatically to the ground. Oikawa stays outside, sitting in the light from the sun going down with his face tipped up into it. Iwaizumi cleans and then recleans their spare little store room, and doesn't tell Oikawa to get the hell inside, even though he wants to. 

Nothing happens after the man—Akaashi—leaves. Bullets don't rain from the sky. An unmarked SUV doesn't start circling their block; no one wanders by the shop front in too-heavy coats and jackets. No one is watching them, no matter how much the back of Iwaizumi's neck prickles. He gets stabbed by splinters twice before he puts on his gloves, carefully tucking the elastic cuffs over the cuffs of his long sleeves.

⚘

Six blocks away, Akaashi Keiji, certified tattoo artist at the Chat Rouge Tattoo Parlor, carefully settles his new orchid on the corner of his counter, where he knows it will get light, but not too much light. He draws a little table on a sheet of paper, to be filled in every time he waters. Not overwatering is important, he reminds himself, and doesn't dwell on how it sounds like Iwaizumi-san's voice in his head. 


	2. Rites

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> \- Qu'est-ce qu'un rite ? dit le petit prince.  
> ("What is a rite?" asks the little prince.)

Akaashi stands frozen in his own kitchen, eye to petal with his orchid flower. The blossom had opened two weeks ago, slowly over the course of a few days. It had been, as promised, an infinitely satisfying experience to watch the bud burst open in slow motion, but now the beautiful, deep purple face of the flower was wilting downward. 

Tentatively, Akaashi steps further into the kitchen, closer to the plant. It trembles as he watches it. He stops, and absolutely holds his breath. 

With a barely perceptible _snap_ , the flower pops off the plant and gently, but unstoppably drifts to the white countertop. 

Akaashi buries his face in his hands and screams.

It’s 3:30 on a Tuesday afternoon; just enough time to stop by Petal Works before his shift at the shop, and Akaashi thanks the universe for small favors

  
⚘

During the overall stress and bustle of the shop renovation, Oikawa had been a rock, totally solid and dependable while Iwaizumi had been running at 120% day by day and at his wit's end by the first week. There had been no problem too big for Oikawa to settle with a word or a snack or just a tie-breaker decision. It had been the most eerily blissful few weeks that Iwaizumi had ever experienced; three weeks where he had been stressed out of his mind, but during which he had been able to flip out over the smallest things knowing Oikawa could pick up the slack and clean up the mess. He'd bled out all the stress that might have potentially built up and crippled him for the big things that happened-- the infestation of squirrels in the loft apartment over the shop, the massive hole Iwaizumi himself had put in the ceiling when he had almost fallen through the rotten floorboards in the loft. It remains one of the most adult and kind things Oikawa has ever done for him. 

Unfortunately, during his own chaos Iwaizumi had let himself forget that the experience might be stressful for Oikawa, too. Or, he had forgotten right up until their last official day of renovation, when a fun argument about a door chime had evolved into a screaming fight with a hysterical Oikawa for almost two hours straight. 

Iwaizumi had talked Oikawa down in the old way, his skills rusty. They had both decided on an over-the-door set up that was sweet, but not childish, and tinkly, but firm. The one they end up deciding on was a present. It’s shaped like an inverted tulip, and Matsukawa never did tell Iwaizumi where he found it; but when he presents it to the two of them in a little box that Oikawa can open with simple delight, it feels like fate. 

For most of the summer months, they keep the shop door propped open in the mornings, but during the afternoon of any season their work is accompanied by the soft, sure sound of the tulip-shaped bell chiming irregularly. Occasionally, right before he wakes up, Iwaizumi will imagine that he hears the bell chiming instead of the beep of his alarm-- it should cause anxiety, that the door is opening that no one should be opening right then, but Iwaizumi never panics. This was partly because, during the cosmetic and structural repairs, Oikawa had systematically built up the type of security that most jail houses would be envious of. Iwaizumi might have been nervous about something he had arranged himself, but he had put his life in Oikawa's hands a long time ago. This trust between them is old and well-worn.

⚘

Oikawa keeps trying to make snide bets about whether or not Akaashi has named the orchid, and Iwaizumi keeps putting him off so he doesn’t have to actively agree with Oikawa that there’s no bet—Akaashi has definitely named the flower, even if he never says the name out loud. By the third week since his first visit, Iwaizumi finds himself looking up every time the door opens with a familiar, firm chime on Tuesday afternoons. Like he does with their Wednesday regular who stinks of hospital and grief, Oikawa pointedly makes himself scarce around quarter ‘til; Iwaizumi puts his afternoon break off without complaint. 

Each time Akaashi comes in, it's easier and easier to Iwaizumi to forget that there was anything about Akaashi that made him nervous. It helps that the short sleeved tee on the first day wasn’t common— even with the thin black ring through his nose and the small army of studs marching up the outside curve of his right ear, Akaashi in his usual uniform of pullover or cardigan over a shirt could be just another university student, in the suburbs visiting his family or taking a break from school. 

He might even _be_ a university student, Iwaizumi thinks, irritated to be dwelling on this in the middle of the day when he should be taking inventory. Plenty of people have tattoos, and besides: the likelihood of anyone coming after him or after Oikawa was low. The likelihood of someone coming after them and then setting up such an elaborate trick to get close to them wasn’t just unlikely, it was stupid to even consider.

Whatever affiliations that Akaashi might or might not have, Iwaizumi has resolved to ignore them. He’s just Iwaizumi the florist, now. He doesn’t have to care about that shit anymore. 

“It’s better,” Oikawa had said the night after Akaashi’s first visit. “To get used to it.” To tattoos peeking over collars and cuffs. To the knowledge that they won’t always know who to watch out for. Used to be easier, Oikawa had said, laughing when his voice shakes, and it had been. Anyone who wasn’t with them was always against them. Now, there’s no “them” out here except Iwaizumi and Oikawa, a pair of florists in the world alone together. Every single person they meet can’t be an enemy to them. That’s no way for a person to live; it’s not the way that Iwaizumi ever wanted them to have to live. 

Maybe Akaashi had affiliations, maybe he didn’t. All Iwaizumi knew for sure was that he was a costumer who was endearingly focused on keeping his plant alive because he wanted something satisfying to come home to. Iwaizumi, looking out over the bursts and bundles of flowers and stems of foliage that make up half of his life now, certainly can’t fault him for that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- C'est aussi quelque chose de trop oublié, dit le renard. C'est ce qui fait qu'un jour est différent des autres jours, une heure, des autres heures.  
> (It is also something that is too often forgotten, says the fox. It is was makes some days different from all other days, some hours different from all other hours.)


	3. Apprivoiser

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On ne connaît que les choses que l'on apprivoise. (You can only understand the things that you tame.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is entirely dedicated to ao3 user NinjaSpaz, who left such a lovely comment on chapter one that it got me thinking more about committing this AU to paper. 
> 
> Cursory review only, because ah, the days and responsibilities: they continue to come and come.

In the middle of the night Iwaizumi jerks awake, clammy with sweat; it takes him a long moment of trying to roll onto his back before he realizes that the line of boiling heat down his back isn’t going to let him.

He groans. 

“Oikawa—swear to god ‘m gonna murder you.” He shifts, trying to roll onto his belly while Oikawa does his best to keep him close. Iwaizumi snarls, stuck fast. “ _Tooru_!” 

“Iwa-chab,” Oikawa whines, “’achime stob, I’mb _sick_!” 

Iwaizumi does an undignified wriggle out from under Oikawa’s arm, twisting when he’s free to sit up on his knees and lean over Oikawa. 

Oikawa looks up at him with fever bright eyes over his puffy, swollen nose, and promptly sneezes right in Iwaizumi’s face. They both freeze, until: 

“Sorrby Iwa-chamb! Sorrby!” 

“Goddammit Oikawa!”   
  
⚘   
  
Suga tiptoes back into the kitchen after he’s done checking on Oikawa, tucked into his bed in the corner of the loft next to the window. His eyes are curved with silent laughter over the white mask hiding his smiling mouth. 

“So good news, it was a head cold probably a few days ago, easy enough to treat. Bad news, he left it for too long and it might progress into a sinus infection,” Suga tells Iwaizumi cheerfully. “So, if he had gone to the doctor or even taken some meds a few days ago, he’d probably be fine now. But it looks like he powered through, so it looks like both of you are shit out of luck until this passes.” 

Sugawara’s willingness to make a house call is the only reason that Iwaizumi didn’t have to haul all six feet and change of cranky, whining Oikawa to the emergency room, so he just grits his teeth. It’s not like Suga’s telling Iwaizumi that this is Iwaizumi’s fault—it just feels that way, no matter how much Iwaizumi understands, intellectually, that the feeling is stupid. 

“It’s not your fault, and it’s not really his, either, Iwaizumi,” Suga says, voice going gentle. Suga has good eyes in his head; Iwaizumi always forgets. “This beast has been sneaking up on people left and right for the past week; he’s the third person to catch it just in my social circle.”   
Iwaizumi grunts. 

“Still, because Oikawa didn’t notice or didn’t want to treat the symptoms, this thing is going to stick around unless he takes it seriously. He needs to stay in bed—no midnight flower arranging appointments. And you both should stay inside, for safety’s sake.” 

With a heavy sigh, Iwaizumi concedes. 

“So, what do I need to get for him?” 

Suga waves him off. “I’ll go and grab what you need from my apartment and bring it over. Daichi’s finally coming out of it so I need to get rid of all the stuff left over.” 

“You have a lot?” 

Suga’s got a terrific laugh that always sounds vaguely delicate even when he’s practically braying. “Daichi passed out a week ago at the shop, he was so sick, and Asahi was the only one home—I’m pretty sure he cleaned our usual store out, he was in such a panic. Trust me, you’d be doing me a favor if you took some of it off our hands!” 

“Iwaa-aab,” calls Oikawa in his miserable, raw voice. From behind the curtain dividing his bed from the rest of the loft, he sounds even weaker than he had that morning. “Stob flirting with Suba and take care of meeb!”  
  
⚘ 

On Tuesday, when Akaashi makes his regular stop on his way into the parlor, the shop is closed. 

On Friday, it's closed again, or still closed. Then on Saturday, the crisp white "CLOSED" sign is appended by a handwritten note neatly taped to the door: 

"We apologize for any inconvenience. We will be closed for the rest of the weekend, re-opening on Monday. Thank you for your continued patronage." 

The handwriting is precise but cramped; underneath the main body of the note someone else has scribbled "(im sick send milk bread!!!!!!)" in a towering, wavering hand. Given his profession, Akaashi tries not to profile or typecast others based on their external traits; however, he’s known both proprietors of Seijou Petal Works for a comfortable while and he makes a rational assumption bout which of them is ill. With only a second’s hesitation, he heads off to Ace’s for some milk bread, as a gift. Perhaps he’s losing his mind, but something is compelling Akaashi to check on them both, and Oikawa-san will hopefully be more comfortable seeing Akaashi if he comes with a present. 

⚘ 

Iwaizumi presses the down arrow on his laptop, so bored that he’s willingly checking his email. From behind his decorative screen, Oikawa makes a miserable sort of groaning noise—proof that he’s dead asleep finally, since Oikawa would rather be caught dead than make that sort of noise after he had told Iwaizumi off for hovering. Oikawa either wants or he doesn’t want; that’s always been the way. 

Suga had warned him about the infection, and Oikawa’s never been an underachiever in any respect. If Iwaizumi hadn’t been cooped up with his miserable coughing and sniffling for three days already, he might have made some recordings of the squeaky, obnoxiously loud snores Oikawa is making; as it is, he keeps freezing, barely daring to breathe when Oikawa abruptly stops snoring at odd intervals. He’s terrified that the dumb bastard is going to stop breathing and cause all sorts of fun, new problems. 

Iwaizumi unceremoniously trashes the third email in the last month from the hothouse flower provider; he’s a courtesy CC on almost all business emails they receive at this point, their business partners having learned long ago that calling was best—or, better yet, just calling Oikawa, the person they really wanted to be talking to in the first place. For all that he could hold a grudge like no one else Iwaizumi had ever met, Oikawa had a level enough temper, especially when it came to business associates. It had been the strangest thing to learn about Oikawa, after—after they had bought the shop, after they had officially moved into the loft together. Oikawa hadn’t been prone to tantrums ever, but the threat of his cold fury had hung over him, before. People had called him a lot of things; they’d called Iwaizumi worse, but the thing was that they had damn well earned those names, he and Oikawa both. 

So, he had waited and waited for that famous temper to explode out of Oikawa like it used to, but he was still waiting. Now, Oikawa is irritated; he’s anxious; he silently scowls at the air when the service person he’s on a call with gives him the run around, and then he efficiently dismantles their argument with ruthless politeness. On bad days—Iwaizumi’s bad days— it makes Iwaizumi twitch; he had spent so long playing cleanup, running interference between Oikawa and Oikawa’s demons that the waiting feels like a sword dangling over him, waiting to drop the second Iwaizumi’s guard drops. 

The kitchen timer at his elbow dings weakly and Iwaizumi presses a hand over it quickly. Setting it for another hour, he rises with a soft groan. Sugawara had at least thoroughly followed through on his promise of supplies—as Iwaizumi starts digging through the miniature mountain for a new bottle of cough syrup and another blister pack of decongestants he wonders if he can bully Oikawa into drinking some soup at the next hour mark, to cushion another fever reducer. 

Whether or not he has soup to make in the first place distracts him right up until their doorbell rings, much, much more loudly than the kitchen timer. He hears Oikawa wake up with a snort, but then there’s only worrying silence. 

“Hachime?” Oikawa’s voice, congested and soft, floats over to him past the screen and Iwaizumi sighs. The worst part about Oikawa being sick is this, this growing paranoia as he took more and more medicine, lost more and more awareness. If Iwaizumi’s learned nothing else, it’s that powerful men, even men who aren’t that powerful anymore, hate being compromised if it’s not on their own terms. Oikawa’s vices had been about staying aware, keeping on top of things; the high that comes from always having the upper hand instead of just the high itself. Half out of his head just from his own sinus pressure, Oikawa had been switching rapidly between whining like a child and simmering in miserable anxiety all week. 

“It’s fine,” Iwaizumi calls quickly as he checks the screen tucked next to their breadbox. He blinks, momentarily too surprised to give any more assurances until Oikawa calls for him again, plaintive. 

“It’s, uh, it’s just Akaashi-san, it’s ok.” Iwaizumi squints and says into the ominous quiet that follows, “Looks like he went to Ace’s. Your stupid sign must have worked.”

Good thing Iwaizumi had already settled his personal issues with Akaashi and who he may or may not be, because this was weird even for him. Akaashi didn’t exactly present himself as the good-neighbor type, but it wasn’t as if Iwaizumi really knew him all that well; Akaashi was a regular at their shop but that didn’t mean he knew anything outside of Akaashi’s weird hyper-focus on the orchid they had sold him. 

“Agashee brought meeg milg bread?!” Oikawa sounds vaguely scandalized, but when he tumbles loudly out of bed and shuffles around the screen his red face looks wondering. 

“Yeah, looks like.” Oikawa seems to be too distracted by the prospect of solid food that he loves to think about other things that can be tucked into a bakery bag, which is good. It means that Oikawa’s thinking less with his instincts and more with his stupid, bread obsessed brain.  
  
“Leg him ing, Iwab!”

Iwaizumi scowls at him as he pulls his cold mask up over his face. “Yeah, yeah, give me a second, Snottykawa.”

Oikawa makes severely congested, outraged noises behind him as Iwaizumi goes for the locks on the door. Carefully maneuvering Oikawa out of sight—Oikawa’s not the only one dealing poorly with sick-induced paranoia—he pulls the door open to the anticipated sight of Akaashi Keiji clutching a bright yellow bag with ‘It’s Ace’s!!’ printed on the front. 

“Good afternoon,” he says, stiffly. 

“Hey!” Iwaizumi clears his throat. Ignoring Oikawa snickering behind him, he lowers his volume. “How, uh, how are you, Akaashi-san?”

“Fine, thank you. I…apologize; I know this is out of the ordinary, but I saw your sign and I—” Akaashi fidgets with the bag in his hands, so obviously uncomfortable that it makes Iwaizumi feel itchy. “I’ve been in the shop so often that I felt like I could at least do this, to repay you for you and Oikawa-san’s attention.” He thrusts the bag out between them and Iwaizumi takes it automatically. To Akaashi’s credit, he barely glances down when a pale hand reaches from the other side of the doorway to snatch the bag out of Iwaizumi’s hands like a fucking goblin. “I hope that Oikawa-san feels better soon, and I wish you good health as well, Iwaizumi-san.”

Oikawa, mouth breathing through the half-loaf of bread already shoved into his mouth, tries to say something; Iwaizumi attempts to snuff the sound of disgust he lets out when speckles of half chewed food hit his face and fails, utterly. Akaashi waits out the ensuing scuffle until Oikawa finally stops choking and Iwaizumi can force a mask over his nose and mouth before he breathes all over their nice-if-awkward guest. This meeting already feels enough like a bad comedy without Oikawa sneezing in Akaashi’s face, too. 

“I saig,” Oikawa huffs, “Than yoog Aghash! Tell Boggun--”

“Bokuto,” Iwaizumi translates, long-suffering.

“—thag he knogged it out og the parg!!”

Akaashi inclines his head and then—

Like the sun peeking out through heavy clouds, a small, bright beam—

his stern, thin-lipped mouth tips up in pleasure. At the compliment to Bokuto, at the fact that Oikawa liked the gift, at the way Oikawa’s dumb voice sounded right then, Iwaizumi couldn’t say. Oikawa himself goes quiet and wide-eyed beside Iwaizumi. They all sit in a waiting silence for a long moment, until:

“I have promised Bokuto-san a coffee already, so I will tell him that you enjoyed them when I see him next. Good health to you both.” And with that, this strange, new, smiling Akaashi lopes away again, back down the stairs to the loft and out their seemingly unguarded gate door at the bottom. 

Iwaizumi, watching him go, says, “Huh.”

Beside him, around another bite of milk bread, Oikawa says, “Hungh,” right back. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Where is this going? Who knows. If you're interested, please consider subscribing to this fic for updates. 
> 
> I am, as always, available on the tweeter: [@theseourbodies](https://mobile.twitter.com/theseourbodies)


	4. Rites (Redux)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> \- Que faut-il faire? dit le petit prince. ("What must I do [to tame you]?" asks the little prince.)
> 
> (Set before and after ch. 3 "Apprivoiser")

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is for AO3 user flyingwargle, who left me a very sweet comment and reminded me that i had a little side story I had completely forgotten to post. 
> 
> roses on asteroids now has a seijo 4 centric prequel: [road flare](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27356059)
> 
> If you like this premise, please consider subscribing to this fic to keep up with future updates. 
> 
> hit me up on the tweeter: [@theseourbodies](https://mobile.twitter.com/theseourbodies)

During regular business hours, the back door of Ace’s is always at least unlocked; whenever Bokuto is working in the back, the door is propped wide open, as it is now. On a hand-painted sign on the inside of the door, a cartoon owl with heavy-lidded eyes warns potential unwanted visitors that “ _Yoo-hoo better know who-oo you’re messing with_!” 

Akaashi steps through the doorway without hesitation and into a heavy wall of hot air. He is unexpected, but he is never unwanted. 

He struggles to take in enough breath of the hot, humid air to greet the barely lit person-shape working at one of the long benches. "Good morning, Bokuto-san." 

"Akash!!" 

It's difficult to say how much of the white in Bokuto's hair is intentional styling and how much is from the unholy amount of flour paste streaked into it from where he's been wiping his bangs back with his messy, bare forearm. As always, Akaashi smiles privately at the boldly exposed, abstract wing that he can see there, outlined in crisp black and colored with a mottled grey to look like watercolor paint. The wing is connected to an angular owl head on Bokuto's shoulder, hidden now by his shirt, and it curves gently in just past his elbow, so the tip of the wing ends midway down his inner forearm. It's one of the most artistic pieces Akaashi has ever done; it remains, by far, his favorite for many reasons other than the raw artistry. 

"This is weird, Akaashi, you're normally not here in the mornings! What's up!" 

When Bokuto had first commissioned his tattoo, Akaashi had been in a bit of an artistic rut. To ease his block, he had drawn a series of tattoos that were not what Bokuto had asked for but were variations on who Bokuto was; Akaashi's favorite had been a hyper-stylized exclamation mark, boldly outlined and filled with complicated bird shapes captured mid-flight. He had made the mistake of showing it to Bokuto after the owl on his arm had been completed; it had taken the combined efforts of Kuroo, Washio, and Akaashi to convince Bokuto that it was a horrible tattoo idea and he absolutely should not request it. 

"I need to buy some milk bread; Oikawa-san, the florist at the shop a few blocks down, is ill and I think it would cheer him up." 

Bokuto doesn't stop working; smaller balls of dough multiply rapidly under his bread knife from the dough ball in front of him. He turns his head and hollers something that might be a person's name at the kitchen door, toward the front of the workspace. Within seconds, a familiar orange head pops into the room. 

"Hinata! I need three of those milk bread mini-loaves for Akaashi! Wrap them up pretty, he’s going visiting!" 

"Akaashi-san!" Chirps Hinata, grinning excitedly when Akaashi nods to him. "This is weird, you're never here in the mornings? Are you ok?" 

Akaashi smiles at the question, worded almost the same as Bokuto's earlier remark. It had taken Hinata all of three minutes to convince Bokuto to take him on as an assistant two years ago; in return for the faith Bokuto had placed in an untrained novice, he's been one of Bokuto's best and most loyal apprentices since Bokuto opened the shop. 

"Milk bread, Hinata!" 

"Oh, right!" Hinata disappears so fast he leaves the door swinging wildly on its hinges. 

"I will be paying for those loaves, Bokuto-san," Akaashi says severely, eager to head off any argument at the start. Bokuto, predictably, puts him off in the least-subtle way imaginable. 

"What! What, Akaash, sorry I can't hear suddenly, the ovens, you know how it is!" 

"Bokuto-san--" 

"Nope, sorry!" 

They continue this farce for several minutes more until Hinata bustles back in with a paper sack in one hand and a travel mug in the other. 

"Here you go! and this is for you, it's to help strengthen your immune system!" 

Akaashi thanks him politely and doesn't say that if he actually came in to contact with Oikawa it would be because of some calamity and not by Oikawa, Iwaizumi, or Akaashi's choice. Admitting this to himself, Akaashi still refuses to interrogate his motives for doing this. 

He thanks Bokuto reluctantly, still stinging at losing the argument about payment. Bokuto reaches out with one floury hand before Akaashi can leave the hot kitchnen. 

"Hey Akaashi?" 

"Yes, Bokuto-san?" Behind Bokuto, the ball of dough has been transformed into three massive trays of dough balls, deftly shaped into little rabbits, their ears cleverly formed by simple scissor snips. 

"I'm glad you're doing this," Bokuto says, eyes bright and wide. "It took you two years living here to even talk to me, and even then I think we'd be in the same place now if I hadn't come to you for my tattoo. So, I'm just happy! You're doing really well!!" 

Akaashi ducks his head. He can't seem to force any words through his tight throat, so he only nods, instead. 

"Now get Oikawa that milk bread while it's still warm! Come back by later with some coffee and we'll talk!" 

"I should bring you coffee? Isn't that usually the host's job?"   
  
"Ah, what was that Akaashi! The oven fan is loud as heck!" 

♤

It’s well past baking hours by the time that Akaashi makes it back to Ace’s the next day, but he makes his way through the kitchens anyway, still warm and muggy. The office in the back of the old building had been sacrificed years ago for more oven space, so the only refuge for shop employees (and one over-eager owner) is a loft that looks out over the shop and the counter below. Akaashi carefully balances three disposable cups in their little tray and navigates the skinny staircase without damage to skin or clothes due to many hours of practice only. 

The loft is one of the best kept secrets of working at Ace’s, Akaashi knows. It’s cluttered with pillows, armchairs, and a mysteriously huge sofa that Akaashi cannot imagine Bokuto brought up the stairs behind him. He had heard Hinata laughing brightly through the swinging kitchen door, but there’s usually some current or alum employee up in the loft during business hours. When Akaashi slips through the neon yellow flag over the door, spies Bokuto instantly, sitting on the sofa arm and humming as he scribbles something in the huge sketch pad perched on his lap. In one of the darker corners of the softly lit space, he can hear someone snoring softly. 

“Good afternoon, Bokuto-san.”

“Hey, Akaashi! Come here, sit down—is that coffee??”

Akaashi smothers a grin. “I was instructed to bring coffee to this gossip session, yes.”

Bokuto stifles a snort, badly, and thumbs his nose. “Clever move, that, huh, Akaash? Well, come here, set it down. I made those weird cookies you like, do you want some?”

“Yes, please.” Bokuto was a marvel with his regular breads and cookies, but another jealously guarded secret of the loft was that all the experiments that Bokuto tried out at home usually made it to the loft before they made it anywhere else; some batches never made it to the shop at all, being too fiddly to make in large batches or requiring ingredients that cost too much to use regularly. There are very few things in Akaashi’s life that have made him happier than a batch of cookies made specifically because he would be dropping by.

After the cookies have been distributed and Bokuto’s taken an actual seat on the sofa, Akaashi hands off one of the coffee cups and curls his fingers around his own. 

“Oh, hey, did you see Daichi when you got these? He’s been sick too, Suga came by the other day to have Hinata make some of his weird tea for him.”

“No; it was Azumane-san at the counter today.”

“Haa, but that means Daichi’s gotta be feeling better then; Asahi’s been out the whole week taking care of him, that part-timer they hired was telling Hinata about it when he came in last.”

Before coming to work at Chat Rouge, Akaashi had worked with exactly zero coworkers who would be willing to take unpaid time off from their jobs to take care of another sick person. Hell, he had never dated anyone who would be willing to do the same. Maybe this is what comes of--

“It’s kind of weird, huh? To think that someone would take time off and take care of another person that they work with?” Bokuto says out of nowhere, neatly breaking into Akaashi’s line of thought. 

Akaashi can only stare at him before he finally manages to respond. “…Yes. Regardless of relationship, I don’t think that I can say any person I worked with would have been so considerate before I…. left my field and pursued my creative interests.”

“Dude, me neither! But I really like it, you know? I didn’t know people could be like this, before I set up shop here. So how was Oikawa, by the way?”

Akaashi considers. “Heavily congested, but fine, I think. He wanted me to tell you that you, ah, ‘knocked it out of the park.’”

Bokuto sways happily, grinning at the praise. “Hey, hey, that’s awesome! Has Iwaizumi been keeping the shop closed?”

“Yes. He seemed fine, so I believe they’ll be back in business soon enough.”

They continue talking until an alarm on Bokuto’s phone blares and the person sleeping in the corner snaps up with a curse. 

“Hey! Time to wake up!” Bokuto says cheerfully; if Akaashi didn’t know damn well that Bokuto didn’t have a malicious bone in his body, he would almost say it was gleeful. 

“’Morning,” mumbles Konoha, rolling off his armchair with an effort that makes Akaashi wince. 

“It’s 3PM, Konoha-san,” Akaashi corrects him, making Bokuto snicker. 

“Whatever. That coffee for me?” 

It had been for Hinata, but Akaashi is willing to be charitable. “It will be now, yes.”

Konoha blinks awake enough to look suspiciously at the cup Bokuto passes to him. Failing to appreciate Akaashi’s rare moment of good will, he asks, “Whose was it, before? Yours?”

“Hinata-kun’s.” Hinata’s tolerance for bitterness was essentially non-existent, something that they all know very well. 

Konoha grimaces, but he drinks it down with only a little wince at the sweetness. 

“Jeez, that kid, don’t know how his teeth haven’t rotten out of his fool head. Oh, hey, what was that alarm really for, Bokuto?” 

Bokuto blinks up from his seat before jumping to his feet. “Shit, the croissants! Hey thanks, Akaashi, I’ll talk to you later ok? Stay and finish those cookies, your coffee… oh and come in the morning again sometime, that was fun!” 

Akaashi waves him off with a smile, already considering it. Years of a strict office schedules and too-little sleep have ruined him for sleeping in, anyway. 

Before Konoha disappears downstairs, he says, “Hey, if he says you can stay, stay. Take a nap, relax, whatever.”

“I should go, now. My shift starts soon,” Akaashi tells him as he collects trash and puts the cookies back in their container. 

“But think about it next time. There’s nothing Bokuto likes better than people up here, honestly. He’ll go home if he needs to be alone.” 

Akaashi blinks at him. 

“Just something to consider,” Konoha continues, strangely gruff. “I’ll see you later.”

“Thank you, Konoha-san.”

Konoha waves at him over his shoulder as he retreats through the doorway and clomps down the stairs. Akaashi finishes cleaning up and leaves quickly; he’s halfway down the street to the parlor when he realizes that he’s still smiling. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- Il faut être très patient, répondit le renard. ("You must be very patient," the fox responds.)

**Author's Note:**

> \- C'est le temps que tu as perdu pour ta rose qui fait ta rose si importante. (The time that you have wasted on your rose is what made made your rose important.)


End file.
